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Google vs. Facebook and more digital highlights

Do you have trouble assessing what online news is relevant and of value for you? Don’t worry! The digital team at Fleishman-Hillard Amsterdam regularly updates you on the best case studies, news, practical tools and interesting background articles.

In brief, the highlights in this edition:

Google vs. Facebook

Virtual shopping in South Korea

Facebook Rank Edge important for search

And more …

Google vs. Facebook

Recently the battle between Google and Facebook reached a new stage. Google attacked Facebook by launching Google +, a new social network. For now Google+ is only accessible to an exclusive group of users, but soon it will be open for everyone to join. The look and feel of Google + is similar to Facebook, but the fact that you can manage your friends in the so called Google circles is new. That sounds pretty exciting, but actually it is nothing more but the option to organising your friends in lists (colleagues, family, friends, etc.). This option also exists within Facebook, but is difficult to find and not easy of use.

First brand with a Google+ account and implications for communication/PR
Right after the launch, Ford set up the first (unofficial) company account on Google+, but immediately got warned off by Google. Google will close all non-personal accounts, as they will launch their official brand pages. Last Friday the company announced that this will happen within two weeks. We will follow this closely. If you want to read more about the implications for PR and communication professionals, read this article for a clear overview.

Facebook: News!
And not surprisingly last week Facebook revenged with some ‘news’. Unfortunately it was not the big announcement that was promised. The developments are all related to the Facebook chat function: the release of group chat and video calling (in close collaboration with Skype).

What about the future?
There are many different opinions about Google +, but it seems that this new network could be the new big thing in social media. In any case, Google + already is more successful than Google Wave ever was (do you remember?). Also plenty of people are looking for ways to integrate Facebook in Google+. For example, this article shows how to import you Facebook newsfeed into Google+.

Nevertheless, we feel strongly that Facebook is slowly losing ground to Google. For example, Facebook has not released any real innovations recently. To counter Google+, Mark Zuckerberg needs to launch something really revolutionary. We also expect the brand pages of Google+ to be much more attractive than the Facebook brand pages, because of the combination with Google search.

Fun fact: Mark Zuckerberg has the most followers on Google+ worldwide.

Online PR / PA

Search

The end of Google Real time search?Perhaps you already noticed that Google stopped showing Twitter updates in search results. Why? The contract between Google and Twitter has ended and that means (at least for now) the end of Google Real time search. We expect that Google will integrate some kind of real time search within Google+.

Facebook Rank Edge important for searchFor the tech savvy’s among us: SEO techniques are spreading. It is not only important to optimise your content for search engines, but also for visibility on Facebook. The Facebook Edgerank is a special algorithm that determines whether your message is interesting enough to show in your fans news feed. This video explains the way of working and the implications of the Edgerank. In the long run a fast booming number of fans will be working against your page if you don’t focus on a clear target audience. If page growth means that fans are becoming less similar to each other as more fans are added, new posts may not even show up in their newsfeed due to the Edgerank.